Koos van den Hout

186 Followers
290 Following
1.7K Posts
Father, recumbent cyclist, technical security specialist at work, book lover, cat owned, snowboarder, linux user, ipv6 fan, radio amateur @PE4KH, born and raised before you could get Internet at home
Koos van den Hout - Life, the universe and everythinghttps://idefix.net/
PronounsHe/Him
PGP key id0x5BA9368BE6F334E4
Police are using the surveillance state to stalk "love interests" because there really is no difference between the part of my job where I fight state surveillance and the part where I fight domestic abuse: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/may/02/flock-police-surveillance-tech-birds-iran-press-freedom
Police are using surveillance tech to stalk love interests. Dystopia, here we come

The tech company Flock has 80,000 cameras across the US – and a report finds some officers are taking advantage

The Guardian

Signal responds to reports: no hack, but targeted phishing campaign

Signal will roll out new measures to help prevent and detect phishing attempts

👉 https://aboutsignal.com/news/signal-responds-to-reports-no-hack-but-targeted-phishing-campaign/

#signal #signalapp #signalmessenger #news #phishing #scam #tech #aboutsignal

Signal responds to reports: no hack, but targeted phishing campaign

Signal itself was not hacked, and encryption, infrastructure, and the integrity of the app's code was not compromised.

AboutSignal

RE: https://mas.to/@ThunderHoneySnow/116480524121859099

An interesting response to all the digital restrictions: no-tech tractors so anybody with a bit of knowledge can repair them

RE: https://floss.social/@Habbie/116467754811935141

The future is unevenly distributed!

Geen vrouw vermoord vandaag

Goed nieuws.

De Speld

RE: https://mastodon.social/@campuscodi/116451501594182472

This feels like something from the movie Idiocracy. But maybe that is because I haven't seen that movie in a while.

NEWS! Bill Murray to appear in 'Groundhog Day 2: The Strait of Hormuz' https://newsthump.com/2026/04/20/bill-murray-to-appear-in-groundhog-day-2-the-strait-of-hormuz/
Bill Murray to appear in ‘Groundhog Day 2: The Strait of Hormuz’

Comedy legend Bill Murray is set to star in ‘Groundhog Day 2: The Strait of Hormuz’, it has been revealed. 

NewsThump
age verification but it's just a dialog box that asks "are you old" and the answers are "yes" and "maybe later"
ME: P
NETFLIX: Jumanji?
ME: PR
NETFLIX: Prometheus?
ME: PRI
NETFLIX: Primer?
ME: PRIN
NETFLIX: Prince of Egypt?
ME: PRINCE
NETFLIX: Prince of Theives?
ME: PRINCES
NETFLIX: The Princess Diaries?
ME: PRINCESS B
NETFLIX: The Princess Bride?
ME: Yes!
NETFLIX: Oh thank God why didn't you just say that
ME: I want to watch it
NETFLIX: Oh ha ha no we don't have it.
ME: Well why the hell did you offer it to me then??
NETFLIX: Offer it? I thought we were just playing a cool guessing game. Yay I win!
ME: Great. Well then can I watch The Princess Diaries instead?
NETFLIX: Definitely not. Don't have that one either.
ME: Okay fine give me Prince of Thieves. The one with Kevin Costner in it. You know how much I like watching Kevin Costner.
NETFLIX: No can do buckaroo what do I look like a Blockbuster? That shit's like 80 years old by now. You want classics, try cable TV.
ME: ...
NETFLIX: Oh also we don't have Prince of Egypt, Prometheus or Primer.
ME: WELL WHAT DO YOU HAVE??
NETFLIX: Would you like to watch another dumb-as-bricks made for TV action movie starring The Rock where every single scene he looks like he is surprised to be The Rock and in this movie?
ME: ...shit. Yes actually. I do want to see that. Go ahead and boot it up.
NETFLIX: Well you CAN'T ha ha ha ha ha ha ha (wheeze) HA HA HA ha ha ha ha
ME: Why not?
NETFLIX: That one's only for our Netflix+ Prime Ultra subscribers.
ME: But I have Netflix+ Prime Ultra.
NETFLIX: Nope you only have Netflix+ Prime. No Ultra. Like a LOSER.
ME: ...
NETFLIX: ...
ME: ...Jumanji? Really??
NETFLIX: Hey how you kids choose to spell Jumanji these days is between you and your God.

We don't know who's funding this stuff for sure, there was the vibecoded analysis that came to the conclusion of Meta, but I suspect that could be true but Meta wouldn't be alone.

Who stands to benefit from this? A lot of forces of centralization, and anti-LGBTQ orgs:

- Microsoft, for sure, since they are seeing Windows' dominance threatened?
- Apple, for similar reasons?
- Peter Theil and similar surveillance company owners and operators?
- Anti-queer orgs and think tanks like the Heritage Foundation?
- Cloudflare, who will probably run the age verification paywalls everyone will be forced to deploy?

Who's behind this? Who's getting politicians so excited about it? There's such a swell of bipartisan support seemingly out of nowhere, and my suspicion is a lot of that enthusiasm is coming from check-writing.

So who's behind it?